let me be empty and weightless
by Lady Shaye
Summary: Your hand crawls toward your stomach, still trying to protect the tiny life inside of you. / You awaken hours later, covered in blood. / OR, what if Caroline was pregnant when Katherine killed her?


Disclaimer: If I owned VD, I would not be up at four in the morning posting my latest obsession. ;)

A/N: Again, a second POV story, this time through Caroline's eyes. Sigh. I cannot get my mind off of Daroline lately.

* * *

Pairing: Daroline

Rating: T

Summary: Your hand crawls toward your stomach, still trying to protect the tiny life inside of you. / You awaken hours later, covered in blood.

Warnings: Miscarriage and cursing.

Title taken from Sarah McLachlan's _Angel_.

* * *

It's a plus.

It's a goddamn _plus_ _sign_.

You're seventeen, dammit, seventeen and on top of the world and oh _god_ Mom is gonna _kill_ you for this. How the hell are you supposed to raise a baby?

You pray it's a false alarm.

* * *

It isn't. The five other tests prove it.

* * *

You avoid people for (seemingly) no reason. You start getting your things in a size medium instead of a size small when you buy shirts and dresses - you don't really know exactly when the bump will start to appear, but best to get the wardrobe now before it shows up unannounced.

Matt starts looking at you funny when you cancel two dates in a row. You just stand there, looking pretty (it's all you've ever done successfully, relying on past experience) and decidedly _not_ pregnant, with a smile on your face, and he just forgets about it the way that he always does. (The way that people always do when it comes to you.)

Elena and Bonnie are all too caught up in their own drama (Elena with her little love triangle, and Bonnie with her supposed "clairvoyance") to notice you putting on a few pounds. And God knows that your mother thinks it's just _great_ when you eat a whole steak from the Grill for the first time since you were fourteen.

You go with a fake ID to a clinic about four towns away, just to be safe, and get all the proper vitamins and such. The test are quicker than you'd hoped and you listen to your baby's heartbeat for the first time. It's not what you expected. Like the flutter of a hummingbird, restless and fast-paced.

_Beautiful_, you think.

You run into Damon Salvatore the next day and he stares at you funny (later, you'll find out that he heard two heartbeats from you and was confused).

(You wonder if you should tell him that it's his.)

You stop drinking, quit going out. The only person you see regularly anymore is Matt, really, and sometimes your mom when she isn't out working late. You plan to tell her, and Damon, tonight.

Then there is a crashing sound and Tyler seems to be hurt or in pain or something. You tell Matt you're just fine and let him turn his worried gaze away for just one second. But then you feel kind of dizzy and tired and you _hurt_, suddenly and wordlessly and without warning.

You pray for your baby, and then there is darkness and nothing.

* * *

It's hours later when you wake up, and the doctor tells you about your visitors - Matt, your mom, and, quite strangely, _Damon Salvatore_. You feel fine, and the doctor mentions your pregnancy only once. But it's enough, and you enlist patient confidentiality and all that. He shuts up but gives you a vitamin, and bottle of water, and a gown big enough to cover your slight baby bump. He leaves, promising food soon.

Oddly enough, he never comes back. (Later, you suspect that it's the work of Katherine, but for now you know absolutely nothing.)

You fall asleep. It's such a crime, later on.

Then Elena (Katherine) is standing over you with a pillow, and you can hardly - can barely - _cannot_ breathe. And you can't reach the button for the nurse, dammit. The lack of air makes your thinking cloudy, your brain fuzzy. All you can see is the blackness, the darkness of the pillow pressed up against your face. You try to find purchase on something, but your grip finds nothing but a blanket. And your other hand crawls toward your stomach, still trying to protect the tiny life inside of you.

You worry about your baby, and know that you're dying. Panic grabs hold of you. Terror fills it way into your brain and drags itself into your stomach and you know no more.

It doesn't hurt to be dead.

* * *

You awaken hours later covered in blood, your own and your baby's.

Your screams draw in the attention of the night nurse and bring her running, shushing you to calm you down and make you be quiet for the other patients. You can't deny the sweet taste of her blood, which you don't even understand. You feel a little voice in your head, one that sounds suspiciously like Damon, of all people. A memory of him _compelling _you. So you do it to the nurse, just like he did it to you, copying your memories of Damon doing it to you and to other people.

Then you compel her to clean up the bloody remains of your baby and you cry and beg and scream and sob while she does it, but you don't let her stop. You tell her to leave early and bury the baby in your backyard (everybody knows where the Forbes house is, and her mother probably isn't home just yet) in a box. Five feet or so down. She leaves, complying.

You cry silently for a little while.

(You'd chosen Juliet Elizabeth for a girl. William Damon - for the father - for a little boy.)

Oh, _God_.

But you sit up and smile for your boyfriend in the morning, and avoid the burning sunlight. You act perfectly normal, minus the fact that you're a freaking vampire or something and Elena _killed_ you and you lost your goddamn _baby_.

(Earlier, weeks ago, you prayed that it was a mistake - _let me be empty and babyless_, you'd begged - and now you'd give anything to have that small being inside of you, alive again.)

Matt leaves and you leave later, too. You confront Damon Salvatore about the memories that are flooding back to you, and you totally kick his ass, which makes you smile a little bit. You feel guilty for smiling, because it wasn't an hour ago that you were crying in the hospital bathroom just before you left.

You totally devour a guy that you later learn was a new crush of Bonnie's, and you get a ring, and you never once breathe a word about your baby to anyone. You're learning all of these secrets, and everybody already thinks that you're _poor, defenseless Caroline who can't take care of herself and gets kidnapped all the time_ and the last thing that you need is pity.

You concentrate on the little stuff, like controlling yourself around Matt and not killing anybody that you care about and protecting Elena from some BAMF that's a million years old or something.

Sometimes when Bonnie touches you she gets this weird look on her face, like she's trying to work something out, but she never does mention anything and you learn not to say anything.

Your mom finds old baby clothes - ones that you'd bought on a whim, months ago - in your closet and talks to you about it. You say you just bought them and you wanted to give them to some charity auction but forgot. Your mom just smiles and nods, still not understanding her daughter. Well, you don't understand her, either, or the way that people can just smile when _your baby is gone_.

* * *

Damon gets bitten by Tyler when he saves you and you demand that he save the werewolf too. You try to forget about it by dragging Elena and Jeremy to _Gone with the Wind_, but the big dresses and the old era of Scarlett O'Hara gets to you and you let them go. Jeremy is relieved, and Elena is worried. You're just a little bit scared.

You get to the boarding house and Elena's leaving. "I have to go to the store, get something for his fever," she says, looking nervous. "Can I leave you two alone? Can you look after him?"

"Trust me," you say, and she does when she gets in the car and leaves you alone with the man who abused you, mistreated you, compelled you (_and gave you the greatest thing ever just before it was taken away_).

You enter the house and walk into his room. Damon looks sweaty and aching and deathly, and he almost looks human this way. It kind of disturbs you, remembering how cool and calm and collected and perfect he usually looks.

He's awake, but he doesn't speak, just eyes you out of the corner of his eye when you sit down on the edge of the bed right next to his arm.

You stroke a hand down his temple, fingers trailing lightly over his forehead. Your cool skin meets his burning face, and you can feel him bite back a sigh as he closes his eyes and lets you touch him. You try to stay silent, you really do, but you can't help it. There's something that needs to know if he's going to really, truly die. (She can't imagine the world with a dead Damon in it. A baby shouldn't die before its father does, but really, a father shouldn't die this early, either.)

"Did you ever want to be a father?" you can't help but whisper, knowing that even in his fevered state, he'll pick up the words and the meaning behind them.

He keeps his eyes closed as you make your way from his forehead to his cheek, then blows out some air softly, comforted a little as you cup his face in the palm of your hand. "I guess so," he says, and his voice sounds raspy. It's a little scary, seeing big-bad-_perfect_ Damon brought down to the weakness of a dying mortal. "When I was human, it was all that I wanted. Get married, have a baby, die a happy man."

"And now?" you murmur, hardly unable to stand the unbearable feeling of not knowing the important answer.

He smiles, eyes still unopened. "Yeah. Now. Now, I'd…I guess I'd still love to be a father. Nothing like teaching your son football, or showing your daughter how to read."

Your eyes fill with tears, and you thank God that his eyes are still closed.

"Why?" he asks, seemingly curious as to why you were wondering all of these supposedly random things.

You exhale slowly, then inhale. The tears flutter on your eyelashes, not spilling over just yet. You control them first. "I guess I just…" you pause. "I just…can vampires get humans pregnant?"

He smiles a condescending smirk, which he still somehow manages even with his eyes shut tight. "Yes, which is why we mostly use protection. It was the one thing that _Twilight _got right." He sneers at the name of the book that you remember he hates. "Why? Is Elena sporting a baby bump that I somehow missed?"

You sigh. "No. But I was."

His eyes fly open. "What?"

"I was pregnant," you breathe. "It was yours." Your voice gets stronger, more confident. "Then Katherine killed me, and when I woke up…" your voice trails off. "There was so much blood," you whisper, mostly to yourself, hardly even remembering that he's there.

He clears his throat from the dryness, and you recall his presence, handing him the glass of water at his nightstand. "Thanks," he says, his voice still dry and pained, and you imagine it's not just the fever hurting him anymore.

There's a pause.

"I never thought I would actually be a father," he says quietly. More to himself than you, but you listen anyway. "I always used protection because I figured - what kind of girl would actually keep my baby? Besides, I never found a girl I thought I could raise a baby with. Not a human one, anyway. Not one that I could actually have a baby with." He looks up at you, eyes still holding that little light of humor that you know is his defense mechanism, and right on schedule, he says sarcastically, "Guess that 99.9% of the time thing didn't really apply to you, did it? You were the point one percent, huh?"

You indulge him. "Yeah, I guess I was."

"Did anyone know?"

"Nope. Just you, me, and the nurse I compelled."

His eyebrows raise themselves. "Okay, then. And um…er…well, that explains the two heartbeats that I heard that day."

You smile, but it's an emotionless, agony-filled grimace instead. And you have a feeling that he knows.

His hand reaches up and touches your upper arm even as you still stroke his forehead, run your fingers lingeringly through his damp hair. (You remember softly stroking his strands of perfect hair back when you had a heartbeat. Maybe that was the day that he got you pregnant and totally changed your life. Yeah, maybe, possibly not. Who knows.)

"I'm sorry," he says, and he says it quietly. You can't tell if it's because he really means, or maybe he's trying to hide his emotions, or maybe his voice is just going out because of the fever.

You smile humorlessly, like before, and just lean down. You kiss him on the forehead, and he blinks, surprised, when you resurface from the touch of your lips to his dry, parched hot skin. The fever is really gripping him, and he coughs before he can say some witty comment.

"I hope you find some other girl to have your baby," you say, because you can't think of anything else. "I'm sorry. And if you ever want to visit the grave - well. Come see me. I know where it is." (You visit it every day, but you don't think to add that.)

He cracks a small grin, but it isn't happy. "That's assuming I'm still here after tonight."

"You will be." You wink at him, and to your surprise, he laughs. "You're Damon Salvatore. You can't just die. You didn't give me two weeks' notice, you bastard." The moment turns decidedly solemn for some reason, and you add quietly, "I was going to tell you, that night. With the car crash and everything. When that machine was set off and took the vampires and werewolves down. I really was."

"I believe you," he says, and you think that he does. So you kiss him on the forehead once, and then one more time on the lips - probably the last kiss that you'll ever have, so you make it last - and then you're gone in a flash before you can see the question in his eyes.

You have enough questions in yours.

* * *

He comes to you about a week later, wanting to see the grave. You lead him out to your backyard, just where it meets the trees, and you take him to the small handmade cross you put together three days after the baby was buried that marks the grave.

You sit there together, the two of you, and you discuss Stefan's disappearance and Elena's downright craziness.

And he kisses you at the grave of your baby.

It's probably highly inappropriate, but it's not a passionate, fierce, fiery kiss. It's gentle, consoling, and sensitive. His touch on your lips is light and almost fleeting. You kiss him back, you can't help it. It's Damon Salvatore, after all. Come on.

You lead him back into your house, and you two talk late into the night about the baby. You decide - boy. William Damon Forbes-Salvatore. "What a mouthful," he laughs, but he look slightly touched by the fact that you would have named the baby's middle name after him. (But he doesn't say anything about it, and you don't expect him to do so. Feelings aren't really Damon's thing, after all - at least, not his public thing.)

He kisses you once more before he leaves through the window - just like old times - and you just sit there on your bed, hand lingering on your lips where he ghosted his mouth across yours. Your fingers brush your stomach once again, for the first time since you woke up covered in blood, and you cry. Again.

But this time, the tears are healing.

You are empty and weightless, once again, and you know that you will always forevermore be this way. You can't change it. You can't have another baby. You can't be a true mother, not in the biological sense of the word. You can never hope to buy maternity dresses or formula or a crib.

And you miss your baby.

The space is not filled. It never will be. And maybe one day, you will tell Elena (who will tell Stefan, if he ever comes back) and Bonnie (who will tell no one, which is such a great thing about her) about the baby that you almost had but didn't, and you will try not to suffocate under their sympathy and pity.

But for now, you're okay with sharing your pain with Damon's and letting it heal both of you. It's a gentle, romance, but maybe you two can mend each other with it. Maybe you will save each other.

* * *

A/N: Literally came out of nowhere. I have almost no idea what I'm typing right now because I'm really super tired, but I hope that you liked it and please review! Comments, questions, critiques, everything!

Also: I know that miscarriage is a sensitive topic and I apologize to anyone who might have been in any way offended by this story.


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